The Mystery of the Blue X.

Saturday morning started like any other. I got up, stumbled downstairs, watched a little Supernatural while the kidlets screwed around on Facebook.

We walked through the hallway about a dozen times, and that’s when we saw it. A big blue X on the wall. Either marker or watercolor.

So I looked around for the Magic Eraser (I’m not being paid by them, but it’s amazing for taking off anything kids can draw on walls) and it easily came off the walls. Watercolor. Definitely water color. But then it was time for my mother-in-law and I to figure out whodunit.

The Oldest Kidlet was the first suspect, and the easiest to interrogate. He’s a lousy liar- if he does lie, his stories get outrageous really quickly. More often than not, he just tells the truth. I asked him if he painted on the walls, he said no.

So I asked the Little Kidlet, who grunted, gritted out a no through gritted baby teeth and went back to playing. Stubborn.

My mother in law took a pass, asking the Oldest Kidlet. Who was actually angry that we’d think it was him. “Why would I do that? You’d punish me and I wouldn’t get to use the computer or the Nintendo.” Definitely not him.

She took a pass with the Little Kidlet, and the result was much of the same thing.

On Sunday, she and I were talking about it again (after I found another patch that he’d painted on a wall that nobody really looked at). She got a bright look in her eyes and walked down the hall.

“So,” she began. “While I know you aren’t supposed to paint on the walls, that was a really good X.”

“I didn’t. Grr.”

“And it was purple.”

“No,” the Little Kidlet said. “It was BLUE. I painted it blue.” At which point he must have realized what he said because he ran off.

Score one for my mother-in-law, solver of the Mystery of the Blue X. But I guess we all lost points because now it’s obvious that the Little Kidlet can lie. And very convincingly at that.